House Projects

We have had many different projects going on between the new house and the baby coming.

Things like...

Adding lights to the front of the house on each side of the garage, since there are no street lights and the front of the house gets very dark at night

Putting up a ceiling fan in our room, where there was previously no light fixture whatsoever

Putting in a light fixture in the office where there was also previously no light whatsoever

Adding a light fixture to the ceiling fan in the nursery, so there could be light and not just air...

Putting up a shelf in the laundry room where there was previously nothing to hold laundry soap, etc.

Putting a sensor in the light switch in the laundry room, since the switch is on the opposite side of the room from where you walk in (this is probably our favorite thing so far)

We love making these little additions to our home to make it feel more homey and make it a little more "ours" with each thing.

Many more projects are in the works, so stay tuned for updates and pictures from them too!

Christmas 2010

We ended up having a wonderful Christmas this/last year despite all the stress from the house that had been going on for weeks leading up to it.

Christmas Eve Dan worked until 1 and then came home to get ready for Christmas at my dad's which we do every year on Christmas Eve. He was suddenly very excited and very "in the spirit of Christmas" like he usually is but hadn't been much this year. I was feeling pretty down and not really into Christmas at all since we had absolutely zero decorations up (not even a tree), and hadn't really been thinking or focusing on Christmas since we were putting so much time and energy into buying our house. I spent about 4 or 5 hours Christmas Eve morning cleaning out our fridge we'd bought off Craigslist the night before, and just wasn't in the Christmas Spirit. Let me explain a little further why I was feeling so down...

About a month before Christmas, when we were scheduled to close on our house on December 15th, we agreed that since there was so many things going on (Dan's brother was getting married on the 17th and there were many festivities to go along with that) and realistically knowing it might be a day or two later (not a week and a half!), we agreed our first night we'd sleep in our new house would be Christmas Eve. We would set up a few decorations, including our smaller size tree and stockings, and would wake up on Christmas morning in our new home which was the ultimate Christmas gift. So, on Christmas Eve, when I was sitting in the garage of our rental, cleaning out a fridge, knowing we wouldn't even have the keys to the new house until Monday at the earliest and 3/4 of our house was packed in boxes, I was definitely disappointed.

Dan loves Christmas, and frankly so do I. It's our favorite holiday and we love that time of year. Dan turns into a little kid the day after Thanksgiving when we put up all the decorations. He loves looking at the Christmas sections at all the stores throughout December. But this year, none of that happened. Which honestly, looking back on it wasn't THAT big of a deal, but at the time it really was. I didn't really feel like celebrating anything.

I made kind of a big deal about not going anywhere Christmas morning (which this year was the first year we didn't spend Christmas morning at someone's house) because I wanted to start the tradition/habit of having our own Christmas together at home first before going out celebrating and visiting family. I didn't have anything major planned, just opening a few small gifts and having a hot breakfast together in what I thought would be our new home. When none of this panned out, again I was a little disappointed. But I tried to just get over it and enjoy Christmas Eve as much as I could.

We went to my dad's for dinner and gifts around 6 on Christmas Eve. Had a wonderful Christmas dinner as usual, and then sat around the tree and opened gifts. We received a lot of great things and were so grateful for them. We returned home that night, and I was in a slightly better mood and a little more in the Christmas spirit. By this point I was trying to just let everything else go and not worry about it anymore because I didn't want to bring Dan down too. We went to bed that night in anticipation and excitement for the next day and the time we'd get to spend with our families.

Christmas morning we woke up around 7 and laid in bed awake for about 30 minutes. It seemed as though Dan was trying to stall for some reason, but I couldn't be sure. Suddenly around 7:30, Christmas music started playing from the kitchen/living room area of the house. We got up and came out of our room, and this is what I found...

My sweet husband knew how much I just wanted a little bit of a normal Christmas at home, got up in the middle of the night after I'd fallen asleep, and set up our smaller size tree, put lights on it, got out our stockings and a few decorations so we could have a little Christmas at home, just like I'd wanted. It brought tears to my eyes when I came out to find all of this. I was so surprised! This shows just how wonderful of a husband I have.

We sat and exchanged the few things we had for each other, and then had our hot breakfast at home.

We got ready and then went about our usual Christmas Day festivites with our families. My mom's was first, like usual. We had a wonderful lunch and opened gifts. We were so blessed this Christmas, as we didn't ask for much and still received so many gifts of things we needed. 3 or 4 Home Depot gift cards that we could use for the small things we needed for our new house, Dan got a gift card to JCPenney to help him pay for a new suit for church. (He's been wearing the same one since his mission...It's dirty, well worn, and now is finally getting too small) I also got an entire bag of stuff for the baby from my grandparents. Diapers, wipes, bottles, pacifiers, clothes, etc. You name it, it was probably in there. We were overwhelmed with gifts and were so very thankful.

After my mom's, we headed over to Dan's grandma's house where we were to do our Christmas trivia with his family. Every year my dad does Thanksgiving and Christmas trivia and it always is so hilarious and fun, so we thought we'd do that this year as a fun way to distribute our gifts to everyone in his family.

As expected, Christmas trivia was a hit. Everyone enjoyed it, and there were many laughs shared. We sat out back and drank some Kool-Aid while playing darts. It was a great way to relax and enjoy the weather and each other.

After finishing up with his grandma, we returned to his parents house to pick up some gifts from them and of course play a few games. Dan's brother Jared and his new wife Amber gave us the game Pictionary Man, which we played right away. By the end of the game, I was laughing harder than I can remember laughing in a very long time. It was a great way to end a busy and emotional weekend.

Overall it was a wonderful holiday spent with our families that we love and appreciate so much. Everything worked out, as it always does, and now this years' Christmas will not only be our little boy's first Christmas, but our first Christmas in our new house too! We can't wait!

The Big Move

After weeks of worrying, praying and stressing over closing on our house, we finally did close on Wednesday December 22. We were hoping because of Christmas being so close but still far enough away that we'd get the keys sometime by Friday so we could move over the holiday weekend. Turns out, we were wrong.

Again, since we bought the house from Fannie Mae, we had to wait for them to sign the paperwork and send it back before the loan could fund, and since someone at the title company attached a note saying not to fund it until Monday, that's what ended up happening.

We were quite disappointed as Dan had taken the day off work on Thursday because we were planning on that being our biggest moving day. We ended up spending Thursday searching for a refrigerator on Craigslist since the one my mom was going to give to us ended up being full of mold. We ended up finding a really nice Samsung side-by-side in black (which matched the rest of our appliances that came with the house) for $300.

It is only a couple of years old, and hadn't been used that much. The only catch was we had to drive to North Phoenix/Scottsdale to get it. We ended up making the trek out there with Dan's dad in his pick up and stopped by the mall for some last minute Christmas gifts on the way.

I spent most of the morning/afternoon on Christmas Eve in our garage cleaning and disinfecting our new fridge. I took out all the shelves, drawers, etc. and ran them through the dishwasher after being wiped with Lysol and Clorox. (It was a pretty clean fridge, but had still had someone else's food and who knows what else in it. I didn't want to put our food and stuff in it, let alone baby food, etc. before I gave it a good cleaning).

We had somewhat reached a stand still in our packing since our rental was pretty small, and even though we had more boxes to pack things into, we didn't have anymore room to put packed boxes. So we patiently waited until Monday, when everything happened all at once. The loan funded and everything by noon and our realtor was going to meet me at the house to give me the keys at 5:30 pm.

Dan met me at the house at 5:30, and was followed close behind by his two brothers and dad with our fridge and a few other big items in the back of a truck. We got the keys, thanked our realtor, and then started hauling...literally.

What I haven't mentioned yet is the fact that we got the keys at 5:30 pm on Monday, and our walk through at the rental was scheduled for 4:30 pm on Wednesday... and Dan had to work all day Monday, all day Tuesday and all day Wednesday, I'm 7 months pregnant, and we were doing this entire move with no moving truck...

Luckily we have great family who was able and willing to help us however and whenever we needed. We moved what we could Monday night, and finally stopped to sleep around midnight. Tuesday, Dan left for work in the morning and his dad and 2 brothers came back around 10 am to continue the move. I felt horrible because being as pregnant as I am, I couldn't do much moving myself other than a few small things. I mostly just sat and told them what to take in each load and where to unload everything to when they got to the house. I felt like a drill sergeant. Luckily, Dan was able to take a "long lunch" and came to help with a couple loads of stuff.

It was so hard for us to just sit back and let his family move pretty much all of our stuff; but since Dan had taken a couple of days off the week before in anticipation of moving, he had no more sick time to use and had to go to work. His family left soon after Dan got home from work, and the two of us went back for what little bit was left at the rental. We loaded the rest into my car and the Trailblazer and finally got home again around 11:30 pm.

Wednesday, I got up and was at the rental by 8:30 am to start on the cleaning. We had tried to do some cleaning along the way, but since there was so many boxes everywhere, it was hard to clean much. The good thing was that we had only lived there for 6 months, and it was just the 2 of us. Needless to say, the cleaning could have been much worse. I finished cleaning both bathrooms, kitchen, laundry room, backyard and vacuuming by about noon and the house looked like it did when we moved in.

The walk through at 4:30 that afternoon was the last step of the move. Once that was done, we could just worry about our new house and focus on getting settled and unpacked. The walk through went well, and I bid farewell to the house and neighborhood that had surprisingly a lot of memories for the short 6 months we lived there.

Little by little things have gotten put away, organized, and set up the way we want them. We still have a ways to go before it's all done, but we're very happy with the progress we've made. We feel so incredibly blessed to have been able to purchase this home and have somewhere to call home that's our own. No more landlords, no more asking permission to change or upgrade things, etc. etc. We have worked very hard for the past year at least to get to a point that we could purchase our own home. The timing was absolutely perfect. We're so happy and excited to have our own home to bring our son home to in March. We love our home and have more than we ever could have asked for here. It is perfect for us and our needs. We hope to have years and years of memories and experiences in this home that we've waited for and worked towards for so long!

Stay tuned for updates about the various improvements/projects we've embarked on in our month of living here, as well as the current projects that are underway in preparation for our little boy!

Thanksgiving/My 23rd Birthday

I realize that this is about 3 weeks late, but we have had SO much going on that I haven't had the time or energy to sit down and write about it. (Post about what exactly has been going on to come soon)

My birthday was Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving. The day itself was pretty low key which was ok with me. Dan worked in the morning and had an eye dr. appt. after work. He got home around 1:30 in the afternoon, and we went to Souper Salad for lunch. Then, I remembered that I'd been wanting to go to Buy Buy Baby for a few weeks, but have never gone because it's so far out of the way from everything else over by Chandler Mall. But on my birthday, we were going to be going to dinner with my dad and step mom, who live in Chandler not too far from the mall. So I decided to take advantage of being in the area, and we went check out Buy Buy Baby. Dan didn't really want to go looking at baby stuff (not that he doesn't care, but he kinda doesn't lol, and just likes me to pick out whatever stuff I want), but since it was my birthday, he tagged along with me and took a pit stop in the glider section.

We went to Tia Rosas in Gilbert (our new favorite...we think we even like it better than the Mesa location) with my dad, step mom and my brother. We had an enjoyable dinner together and then returned to my dad's house to open a couple of gifts. Generally I get mostly cash for my birthday because everyone knows I am a crazy woman who does 3 am Black Friday shopping. This year was very much the same. I got 1 or 2 things, and the rest was cash.

Thanksgiving was the next day. It is usually a somewhat stressful holiday for us every year because we have so many places to go throughout the day and family we don't want to leave out. But this year wasn't too bad in the end.

We always start Thanksgiving at my mom's. We eat there usually around 11 or so when my grandparents get there with the food and everything. The other thing about Thanksgiving at my mom's, is that it's also a birthday celebration. My birthday is on the 24th, my younger brother's birthday is the 29th, and my grandma's is the 30th. So we always have an ice cream cake and open all of our gifts together on Thanksgiving. For this reason, we generally spend a little more time at my mom's.

We then make our way to Dan's family celebration which is always held at his grandparents in Mesa. All of his aunts, uncles and cousins gather together for football in the front yard, board games, and other fun activities.

After a few hours with Dan's family, it's on to my dad's for our 3rd Thanksgiving dinner. (Thankfully Dan's family has a buffet style meal so we can just eat what we want and can handle) Thanksgiving at my dad's wouldn't be complete without Thanksgiving Trivia, and sitting to look through the Black Friday ads after dinner. This year, I looked through the ads myself for a little while, but we were able to have many good laughs during trivia. Can't wait for Christmas Trivia!

We returned home around 11:20 that night, and waited a few minutes before heading to our local Wal Mart to pick up a few Black Friday doorbuster deals at midnight. Dan had never experienced Black Friday of any kind before, and didn't really want to go, but he didn't want me to go by myself that late to Wal Mart. I think by the time we left Wal Mart (around 12:45 am), he was glad he went to experience it. You can read about his experience here

Overall it was a successful Thanksgiving shared with our families, and it was fun to catch up with everyone. Round 2 of the holidays comes next week...Christmas!

We Got the House!!!

After a week of waiting (which we were told would be 1-2 days, go figure), dealing with agents that are not the easiest to work with, and battling 2 other offers along the way, our offer was finally accepted on the home we loved most!

Dan and I have been looking for houses for over a year. Trying to see what was out there, get a feel for different areas and neighborhoods, etc. to try to figure out where we were supposed to be. Where it was that we were supposed to raise our family.

Our original plan was to purchase a home right away as we moved from Tucson back to the valley. But when the stars didn't quite align for that to be able to happen, we found the rental we've been living in for the past 5 months. All in all, I think it was better that way because we didn't pay rent in Tucson at all, so this was a good chance for us to get used to paying all bills, including rent.

Even back in May when we first starting looking at becoming pre-qualified, we talked to a few different lenders who all said pretty much the same things. We knew what we needed to do if we wanted to buy a house, and so we started working towards it.

When Dan was offered the job he has now at the bank, he said that he didn't know why, but he really felt like there was a reason he needed to work there. As things have unfolded, his bank has been absolutely crucial in helping us get to the point we needed to be in order to get pre-qualified. Not to mention the fact that because they're so small, and they all know Dan from working in the same branch with him, it has been such a smooth and easy process almost the whole way through. I still think there is more to why he works where he does, but I also believe this was one reason.

Dan has also said the whole time, since probably a year ago, that he really felt like once we were prequalified and seriously looking at houses, we would find one and then BAM it would be ours and we'd be closing all very quickly. He said that all these months of looking and working toward it would end very quickly when we did finally find "The House".

And so it has, so far...

We were pre-qualified 2 weeks ago tomorrow. We went the very next day (Saturday) to drive by some houses we'd found online and do our usual peeping tom routine, looking through the windows and backyard, etc. It just so happened that one of the houses we were going to look at was having an open house. So we went in, looked around, didn't really love it but we were ok with that. While we were there, the realtor who was running the open house started talking to us about some other homes in the neighborhood (which we were also going to look at) and said that he could take us through them too. So we did. We walked through probably 6 or 7 houses that day, and came home knowing 100% that we were not going to play the short sale game. There was no way we could risk waiting for 4-6 months to hear anything when there are plenty of bank owned homes out there now.

The next day (Sunday), we met up with this realtor again to look at a few more houses. We ruled a handful of them out. But last on the list were 2 homes in Castlegate, a neighborhood that we had previously completely ruled out. We drove through this neighborhood almost a year ago for the first and only time, and agreed we didn't feel quite right about it. Something felt weird about that subdivision. So ever since then, we've just ignored any and all homes that have come up in there. But Saturday night, we drove through just for fun, and had a totally different feeling about it. This time, it felt the most right. It felt the most like us of all the neighborhoods we'd looked at.

So Sunday we decided to walk through a couple houses in Castlegate that looked like beautiful, nice homes. Sure enough, we loved them! I originally liked one more than the other, simply because it was huge! It needed some work (new carpet, paint, some patching of a few small holes, a new door jam, etc.) but it was 3000 sq. ft. for $110,000! How could I pass that up?! Well, I could once we found out there were a bunch of other offers on it that we just waiting to hear back from the bank. Dan and I agreed that we didn't love it enough to fight for it, plus it did need some decent work.

The other home we looked at in Castlegate was Dan's favorite from the first time he walked in. It is just over 2000 sq. ft. and the asking price was just under $100,000. This home literally looks brand new. It would not surprise me at all if no one has ever lived there. It was built in 2007. The carpet is brand new, the paint looks brand new. There are no scuffs on the tile or walls or anything. The kitchen appliances are new. The backyard is a good size, and it also has a pretty large front yard. I think that was part of what made Dan love it so much, a big yard has always been at the top of his priority list and plus, who wouldn't love a brand new house? One that won't require anything to move in except a couple of ceiling fans for the bedrooms. (Whoever owned it took them before they turned it over to the bank) It is a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom home that is 2014 sq. ft and just east of Ironwood and Ocotillo. This will make Dan's commute to work about 10 minutes shorter (only about 20 minutes instead of 30), and put us closer to everything and everyone than we are out across from Johnson Ranch.

We decided that we love the Castlegate subdivision and felt that is where we needed to be. We went through the home once more a couple days later, and submitted our offer last Wednesday 10/27. We were expecting an answer by Friday, as the banks generally move pretty quickly. Then we learned of the sluggishness of the selling agent. She moves at her own pace, and doesn't care how long anyone waits. We didn't hear anything more until Monday of this week, when we found out there were multiple offers on the house. Apparently since we put in our offer on Wednesday, there were other people who submitted offers also. We had until the end of the day to submit our best and final offer. We sent in our best offer that we were comfortable with and willing to pay and still have a chance at getting the house. We expected an answer either that night or the next day, but of course, it never came. So we just waited...

We found out yesterday that the woman from Fannie Mae who makes decisions on the homes was out sick...she was expected back either today or tomorrow...

We weren't expecting an answer until Monday with the rate everything had been going.

Then my phone rang at 8 am this morning. It was our realtor with "good news"!

The bank accepted our offer out of the 3 that were submitted! The house is ours! (Well, as much as it can be until we're holding the keys in our hand) We have a closing date of December 16th, or hopefully a little bit sooner, depending on how quickly our loan is processed at Dan's work.

My goal was to be moved before Christmas, so we can set up our Christmas decorations (even if it is a little late) at our new house! Sure enough, if everything goes according to plan (which I'm not holding my breath...this is the home buying process...) we'll be able to do just that! Also, our lease here is up on Dec. 31, so it'll be perfect timing for us to clean up this rental and move out without having to rush or pay another month's rent. The timing couldn't be more perfect, and we couldn't be happier!!

Here's a picture of the front of our new home!

Baby Sale!

Last week on my way home, I stopped at Target to pick up shampoo, a shower liner, and a few other basic necessities. Well, each time I go to virtually any store, I can't leave without glancing through the baby section.

So I meandered through the aisles of baby gear and accessories and caught a glimpse of what looked like a sale tag underneath the display of the crib I'd been wanting. I stopped to take a closer look and saw that not only was the crib $20 off, but you got a free mattress when you bought the crib!

I realized what a great deal this was, but didn't give it too much thought because I didn't know that we had an extra $250 to spend that night. Not to mention the reason why I'd been holding off on buying the crib up until now, because if/when we move in a couple of months, I didn't want to have to move it. I went on to work, but I just couldn't forget about it.

I came home and told Dan about the sale. He agreed that it was a great deal, but asked where we would get the money from. After figuring out a way to make it work, we headed out to Target to take a look. By the end of the night, we came home with this...

and this...

Also as part of this big baby sale Target was having, they had a smokin' deal on the swing and bouncer that I wanted. The swing was $7 off (not that much I know, but just wait), and then you got the $50 bouncer for free when you bought the swing!! I couldn't believe it. I called my mom, and she almost couldn't believe the deal either. She told me to call my grandma and let her know, because she knew my grandma would want to get something bigger like that for my shower and she is always ones for big bargains.

So I did, as soon as I got home from work (before we left to get the crib), I emailed my grandma and told her about the swing deal. Being that this was all happening Thursday night, and the sale was only good through Saturday, I needed to get on it quickly.

My sweet grandma emailed me back the next morning and said she would go to her Target in Surprise, AZ that afternoon to check it out. Friday night, while I was at work, I received a call from my grandma saying that her Target was out of the bouncer and asking if I could check at my Target and get it if they had it. So I did.

I went at 9:30 on Friday night and picked up both the swing and the bouncer for $135!

What a deal huh?

We're having a...

I know this is a little late in being posted, but for those of you who have not already heard...

We're having a baby BOY!

We went in for the ultrasound last Thursday (the 14th) and he looked so wonderful! It was so exciting to see a baby inside instead of just a small gummy-bear like shadow. He is growing very well and was even a few days above average in his weight. The tech said everything looked great, the only thing she wasn't able to see was his feet because he had them jammed into my cervix the whole time. His little legs look so long and crammed in there already! From this ultrasound at 18 weeks, it looks like he's going to take after his dad in height, but we'll see.

The tech looked at all of the organs and everything like usual, and then told us to just tell her what else we wanted to see. When we asked if she could tell if it was a boy or a girl, she went right to it, and pointed it out to us. Dan squeezed my arm and was so excited to hear he was going to have a little boy. I had a feeling since the beginning that it was a boy, but never had anything more than that to go on. Turns out, my gut feeling was right!

Probably the neatest part of the entire appointment was at the end, just as she was getting ready to turn the machine off, she was holding it still over his little face so we could see him. He had been squirming around so much during the entire ultrasound, but had finally settled down right at the end. Then, just before she turned it off, he looked at us and smiled, then yawned a HUGE yawn. She was able to take a picture of his little smile real quick, so I have it in a little frame next to my bed.

This ultrasound made it so much more real, and made us so much more excited. We were already overjoyed to begin with, but seeing our little boy in there, and having him look at us was an unbelievable experience. We can't wait for him to get here!

(If you tilt your head to the left, or counterclockwise, you'll be able to see his nose and mouth, and his hand over his eyes)

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